Can New Accreditation Standards Improve Teacher Preparation?

Teacher preparation programs have come under fire in recent years for poorly preparing new teachers to meet the needs of today’s students and the demands of education reforms. Most recently, the National Council on Teacher Quality released its survey of about 1,200 prep programs. (Spoiler alert: Only four programs made the top tier.)

Expectedly, there has been a lot of talk among stakeholders and policymakers on how to improve teacher preparation. In 2011, the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education (NCATE) – the larger of the two teacher prep accrediting bodies – released papers calling for more and better practical experiences (time working with students) and more of a focus on child development. (Read our report on improving the preparation of PreK-3^rd grade prospective teachers.)

Over the summer, NCATE merged with the other accrediting organization, Teacher Education Accreditation Council (TEAC), to form the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP). In August of this year, the new CAEP Board of Directors approved new accreditation standards, intending to elevate the requirements for entry into programs, improve the quality of practical experiences, and deepen prospective teachers’ content and teaching knowledge.

To what extent these new accreditation standards can really be a lever for change really depends on how they are implemented and whether institutions are held accountable for meeting them. History illustrates there is reason to be skeptical. The power to improve preparation programs really lies with the states.

Some educations schools already are making, and will continue to make, improvements like the ones listed above and others. But there will need to be more incentive for others.

Accreditation is not mandatory. Most states, however, do require it as part of their state approval process for teacher prep, either by simply making it a requirement or by adopting the accreditation standards in whole, or part, as their own program approval standards. In this latter case, states require prospective teachers seeking state licensure to have attended a state-approved teacher preparation program. So these new standards, which are an improvement, are an encouraging initial step in helping to ensure that new teachers are better prepared.

Noteworthy improvements to the standards:

• Making opportunities to practice teaching in real classrooms a central piece of preparation. The standards would require that supervising teachers be co-selected by partners (school districts and preparation programs).
• Requiring preparation programs to set a GPA minimum for teacher candidates at 3.0 (a big jump from current practice at most schools). Also requires candidates to meet or exceed the group average performance on assessments such as ACT, SAT, or GRE.
• Requiring institutions to be more selective. By 2016-17 school year, candidates must come from the top 50 percent. By 2018, they must come from top 40 percent and by 2020, the must come from the top third of the class.
• Ensuring that candidates can demonstrate the ability to teach to college- and career-ready standards.
• Requires preparation programs to make program quality data available.

These are important changes. It is likely that most states will in fact adopt these standards and either partner with CAEP to conduct program reviews or include them as part of their own monitoring and review processes. But again, it will come down to implementation and accountability. Some educations schools already are making, and will continue to make, improvements like the ones listed above and others. But there will need to be more incentive for others. Accreditors, however, do not have a good track record when it comes to withholding or revoking accreditation. And states rarely come down on institutions that fail to meet standards. What's more, only a few states even bother to identify programs as low performing. For these standards to have teeth, states will need to take responsibility for sticking to them and holding prep programs accountable. Doing so, however, could prove to be politically challenging.

Stay tuned for more on improving teacher preparation. Next, I will write on EdTPA, a new teacher performance assessment to evaluate prospective teachers. It's being piloted/used by institutions in at least 33 states and could be another real opportunity to help make sure prospective teachers are better prepared."